Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

Search for meaning: a study on the Cranbrook Academy of Art’s graphic design department
the pioneer theoretical approach of the school, that was diverse,
but the title seems to privilege Deconstruction Theory. Besides
Lupton, also Chuck Byrne and Martha Witte (1990), in their article
about Deconstruction in Graphic Design, write about the importance
of literary theory influence to graphic design in Cranbrook.
(Byrne, Witte 1990: 251)
Rick Poynor (1991), in his book Typography Now: The next
wave, shows some graphic and typographic works that explores
the break with traditional typography. He argues:
Cranbrook has been at the forefront in exploring the dense,
complex layering of elements that is one of the most salient (and
frequently criticized) characteristics of the new typographic
design. Unlike the earlier work of the New Wave Designers, this
is not simply a formal exercise in collage-making; the method
arises directly from an engagement with content. The Cranbrook
theorists’ aim, derived from French philosophy and literary theory,
is to deconstruct, or break apart and expose the manipulative
visual language and different levels of meaning embodied in a
design, in the same way that a literary critic might deconstruct
and decode the verbal language of a novel. (Poynor 1991: 13)
In that time the deconstruction term could be over-emphasized,
as the criticism defined Cranbrook as the school that followed
deconstruction as a strict discipline. In fact, the students and
faculty had access to critical texts, but it was just one of a number
of theories discussed in Cranbrook. The term was clearly
in vogue, having as one example the Mark Wigley and Philip
Johnson´s Desconstructive Architecture exhibition in the Museum
of Modern Art in New York City.
Julia Moszkowicz (2011) in Lost in Translation: The Emergence
Figure 4. Design Department Poster designed by Katherine McCoy
and Erasure of ‘New Thinking’ within Graphic Design Criticism in
the 1990s, recaptures the ideas about the criticism and postmodern
investigation, especially in Cranbrook during the 1990’s
and uses as reference point, Lupton’s (1991) and Mike Mills’s
(1992) articles for Eye in 1992. According to Moszkowicz, Lupton’s
article criticizes Cranbrook work under accusation of authorship
intentions.
Despite an initial appreciation of the intellectual aspirations of
Cranbrook Designers, Lupton accuses the Department of Two-
Dimensional Design of ultimately nurturing an ‘artistic selfcontained’
genre that fails to look beyond the graphic artifact to the
world of business and media. (Moszkowicz 2011: 244)
The author, in this article, also works with Mike Mills’ argument,
that seems to demonstrate enthusiasm for the Cranbrook’s intellectual
approach, but criticizes the same. (Moszkowicz 2011: 246)
Another famous graphic work, this one made by Katherine Mc-
Coy, drew attention to criticism as it apparently sought to sell
deconstruction theory. The poster publicizing Cranbrook Design
Department’s program – 1989 (Fig. 4) was considered by Poynor
as influenced by Derridean Deconstruction (2003: 51). The author
describes the use of the opposite words in the middle of the poster.
However we must remember that, actually, Derrida questioned
the opposite hierarchies to prove its arbitrariness.
Katherine McCoy explained in interview that they weren’t really
opposites, but word-pairs with related conceptions. The poster is
very interesting also for the content being suggested by the conceptual
word-pairs and with the see/read/image/text diagram,
that is one of the key ideas: to learn how to explore relationships
between text and image and to learn how to read and see.
The key idea to understand the theoretical approaches in Cranbrook
is to understand that the Department was a free thinking
environment, where the students and faculty had access to several
theoretical references. The influence of some of those poststructuralist
and post-modern references had spread out and
were studied in many other schools, besides Cranbrook. As teachers,
Katherine and Michael McCoy supported the individual search
of each student to it find his/her own voice. That principle differed
from other schools with confined methods, where all students
worked with the same references. They believed in mutual search
(by exchange) and not in mutual conclusion (where everyone
needed to have the same result). (McCoy 1990: 14).
Conclusion
As we could understand in the making of this article, the Cranbrook
Academy of Art was really a school where the debates and
the influence of theories were very important to work experimentation.
However, deconstruction was not the main base. In some
projects like the posters FIND and LOAF one can clearly see the
author´s personal background, and if some critics have defined
the designer authorship strategy of Cranbrook as being a poststructuralist
strategy, they were right in some way. Despite of
that, we must always remember the importance of Cranbrook´s
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